This is a 360 photo of me at Niagara Falls
..not anymore it's not!
what this really is is one the coolest
discoveries I've made recently and it's
called Snapspheres it's essentially
Lego for 360 photos and it comes in
about 30 to 40 pieces and you assemble
them together into the sphere
Each piece is magnetic and it has indications on
the bottom side about what goes where
the plus symbol of one piece joins up
with the circle symbol of the next
And there we have it a 360 photo the size of
a small soccer ball and it comes with
this little thing you can display it
with no doubt this sounds really awesome
right and you're totally 'shut up and
take my money' but hold on a minute
because we need to talk about the price
this cost just as much as a cheap 360
camera which means you're probably not
gonna get one of these for every 360
photo you've ever taken with something
like this you'd only really want one of
them may be your best 360 photo you've
ever taken so you have a nice little
memento to put on your mantelpiece
otherwise snapspheres are out of most
people's price range I have actually
found el cheapo versions of this when
searching Google and YouTube that are
made of paper and they're essentially
like origami you'll print out a 360
photo on regular paper and fold it up
so it turns somewhat into a sphere
although not really because it's so
difficult to make a sphere out of paper
and also the print quality ain't gonna
be too good which kind of in my opinion
defeats the purpose of printing photos
there's also this method where you can
assemble a 360 photo like an apple peel
this is something you'd need to order
and again the end result just isn't
really worth your time and money
there's also another brand I know of
called Scandy which are similar to Snapheres
except it comes as an entire
ball the quality is no doubt better
because it's made of a fiberglass
material however the sharpness of the
images is really not great
again this might be something to
consider as a one-off thing but again
it's a out of most people's price range
unless you're a die-hard 360 enthusiast
that would actually get value out of
having a printed out 360 photo or say if
you work as a 360 photographer or
videographer and you wanted to offer
these to a client as say part of a
package if you were shooting someone's
wedding as 360 photos
360 videos you could easily upsell them
on a printed 360 photo whether it be
snapspheres or scandy the next method of
printing 360 photos is something I
discovered from my friend Daniel you may
remember him from this video 'Here is my
friend Daniel in the red shirt and he's
going to attempt a 360 shot with a
DSLR in the middle of Shibuya crossing!'
and Daniel is the only person I've ever
heard of to do this if not the only
person in the world
Daniel prints out his 360 photos like
this and it feels really good quality
almost like a painting or a really
professional print when you look up
close it almost does look like a
painting this looks really fantastic
when I first saw this I convinced him to
start a business offering these prints
because I know so many people would love
a professional print like this hanging
on their wall so as we speak Daniel is
putting together a small startup
business where he's going to offer these
in all sizes and his very first customer
goes by the initials B.C. can you guess
who it is? these are the next step up in
price range from printed spheres because
these could be considered as fine art
and you could sell these they're only
going to be for a very small minority of
people because the prices start and a
few hundred dollars but it's not gonna
stop me from filling my whole house with
these I'll put links to Daniel's startup
down in the description he should be
starting business within the next few
weeks so if it's something you see value
in then definitely pick one of those bad
boys up. But you might be thinking Mr.
Ben I don't have that kind of money what
do you think I'm made of money or
something? Well neither am i and that's
why there's a really simple way of
printing out your 360 photos that is
probably really obvious and that is
going to your local office store and
printing out square tiny planet photos
in these three envelopes I have a
hundred and seventeen of my tiny planet
photos i shortlisted my best photos from
Instagram and printed them out they're
twenty centimeters by twenty centimeters
and they cost $2.20 a
print these actually turned out
surprisingly well they're all shot with
point-and-shoot cameras so if you're on
a budget this is the best way to do it
just reframe your 360s as tiny planets and
print them out at your local office
supply store with that said I think we
should put these bad boys on the wall
and make my next amazing YouTube backdrop
this is the wall I'm filling with these
117 photos and I'm going to be filling
them sequentially in order that I shot
them which means the first photo added
to the wall is my first tiny planet
photo I've ever taken my shot this on
one of the very first theta cameras the
theta m15 a few years ago and I was so
proud of this thing I could barely even
afford this camera but the results I got
it just blew me away I didn't even mind
being poor and not being able to afford
to eat them like I don't do this shit
how cool is this? so that's where my love
of tiny plant photography began with this
very photo.
with this one I was at a driving range
and I put my Theta right in between the
golf club and the ball I had no idea
how the photo was going to turn out I
just hoped for the best and luckily it
turned out to be a pretty decent
inverted planet this was my first photo
to get over 500 likes I couldn't believe
it I'm like 'oh my god' this Instagram
thing it's taking off 500 people liked
this photo and it really got me excited
about Instagram because I knew if I
could break the 500 barrier there would
be many more barriers I could break from
there with this one can you guess what I
did? yes that's right
I stuck my camera into a popcorn bag it
was simultaneously the dumbest and
smartest thing I'd ever done at that
point this one is one of my most iconic
images and one of the simplest I was in
Winnipeg in 2015 in Canada and I went
into a dead forest in about minus 30
degree Celsius weather I got my camera
out I took a selfie I froze both hands
clean off and I ran back to my car
and I downloaded my photo and I'm like
oh my god I did it yeah!!! this one it's
pretty average isn't it but why it's
special to me is it was the first time I
ever made money from a tiny planet photo
I entered this into my gym's photo
competition and there were about ten or
eleven entries total and most of them
were gym selfies and really poorly
taken phone photos and when you compare
a tiny planet to that it won hands down
and I ended up with a nice little cash
reward that I spent on some nice new gym
clothes this one is still one of my best
photos ever I shot this in Fiji and this
was seconds after I finished parasailing
on that very parasail there and I had my
theta s connected to a gorillapod at
the top of the speedboat we were on and
I quickly ran down connected to my phone
I switched into photo mode and snapped
this photo as they were pulling the
parachute resulting this amazing action
shot that I'm gonna be proud of forever
this was at the end of my first ever
workshop that I held in LA and this was
our group photo I shot with the theta V
camera and I think that turned out
pretty darn good there I am and look who
it is oh it's 360 rumors keep going and
it's your boy Hugh from Creatorup look
at his long luscious locks I'm jealous I
shot this one in San Francisco and I
know you're seeing two but it's really one
this is one
single 360 photo that i edited in two
different ways this photo I took outside
of Tokyo Tower and it took me about
three hours to take this photo because I
couldn't find a single good angle of
this damn tower
I tried shooting on every side of it I
tried shooting close I tried shooting
far but it was always blocked no matter
where I put the camera I was so
frustrated and then I was on my way home
I'd admitted defeat I was about to get
on the train and I thought you know what
I can still see in the distance why not
put the camera on the ground and put the
tower between my legs as a metaphor for
how I feel right down and it turned out
to be one of the best photos of my Tokyo
trip so this photo it's going to serve
as a reminder to never give up there
will always be an angle you just need to
go and find it if you can't find an
angle make a photo like this you'll
probably find an angle this is the very
last photo I took before moving to my
new place and this is a photo of my new
place just before I moved in and this is
the very last photo on the wall this
symbolizes the end of one adventure and
the beginning of an exciting new
adventure
this is my 360 journey so far if you
haven't started yours yet, there's no better
time than now. I'll see you in the next one!